Hello everyone,
Alrighty, my name is Leo and I am the owner of Carbonwerks. Glen, I recieved your email and will try to answer some of it here, hope you don't mind. Adam, my fellow DSmer, thanks for the plug over at the SHO forum here.
So a bit of a run down on Carbonwerks for ya'. Carbonwerks is a "one man" facility. We (the wife handles all the sales and books) have been doing this full time for about 4 1/2 years now. I run the whole picture from beginning to end. I do all the molding, plugs, and R&D. Just me.
Back in the mid to late 80's I worked in Florida making and repairing (mostly repairing) surfboard for Quiet Flight and Fox. Totally differnt mediums though. Now for those that have visited the web site I am sure you noticed a few things...
*The parts are all interior pieces. True, I mainly specialize in interior parts, not dash kits, but rather other parts such as panels, full dash cover, etc and such that no one makes. Mostly this is in the "show car" arena. Carbonwerks is just recently starting to make exterior parts. These are for race mostly when it does come out. Yes, they will look as nice as the interior parts but we will not be as picky since these will be meant to have paint applied or at least cleared over. That is up to the customer to handle how they want.
*Nothing for this platform you are all driving. Well there needs to be a demand that I am aware of to make it worth while. This is the forst i have ever heard from the SHO crowd. I cannot cover the cost of molds for just a few parts. Grant it I make custom parts for folks and they of course supply the part and get a break. But most of the time for fenders and hoods which are large parts and require alot of materials the customer incurrs the cost. And to be honest I have never hassled with a "group buy". Just always seemed to look like problems to me. Folks already get antsy enough waitng a couple weeks for a part I ALREADY have molds for.
So anyhow, we always use real carbon fiber or kevlar when applicable. While I do make parts that have nothing but carbon fiber I also make a habit of using s-glass behind my parts. This is stronger than fiberglass, as light as carbon, and helps hold resin in the part. Standard proceedure here. The resins i use are UV resistant and can stand up against most oils and gas, etc...but I would treat these parts just like your other car body parts and try not to get this stuff on them. Our methods will range from wet lay up to vacumm bagging although i find most parts are fine with wet lay up. I work closely with Frank's Custom Fiberglass making bodies for Pro Drag racers such as Chris Rado, Vinny Ten, Mike Scranton, Angela Proudfoot and a host fo other around the country and we make their front clips and bodies with wet lay up. So if it is good enough for cars running at speeds of 200 mph or in that level than it is good enough for the masses. I am always concerend about quality over quantity anyhow.
Turn around on making parts is all dependent on what is goin on at the present moment. But it is always busy here and on custom projects i am always on a 4-6 week turn around or longer. Getting plugs and molds made is the most time consuming. Once the master molds are made it is all downhill from there. If we make the fenders they will be stock in sizing, no flard fenders. Same with the hood, first an OEM type and then later down the road maybe one with the cowl. Now just to give you an idea of the cost for the hood, and this is just to make the master plug and mold will be close to 1200-1300. It will not have the latch for the front, you will need pins, I will make the hinge points for the rear or it can be pinned as well for a lesser cost. The hoods we make for DSms wiegh in at about 6-8 pounds.
Now that 1300 is to make one mold, the cost of the hood will be around 450-475, less than 500. A group buy of 10 hoods or more would **** the mold cost (I would cover it). Shipping is done by freight and that varies. Once a hood is made, boxed and wieghed we would know the shipping cost but I do not see it being less than any other hood to ship. Same cost would apply for fenders as well. Figure they are about the same surface area as the hood.
Well if I left something out just let me know. I will check back here later and over the next couple days. Also my email is
[email protected]
I get tons of email and my server will delete any that look like spam or have a virus. So if you do not here form me that might be the case. I try to anser all emails that make sense. I get some weird one though.
Later,
Leo
www.carbonwerks.com
